Tom Rock: Dexter Lawrence the latest good player the Giants haven't been able to keep
Giants' Dexter Lawrence II walks off the field following a game against the Dallas Cowboys on Jan. 4, 2026, at MetLife Stadium. Credit: Getty Images/Ishika Samant
Something almost imperceptible that John Harbaugh said in passing a few weeks ago managed to find renewed relevance as the Giants’ spat with Dexter Lawrence crescendoed in recent days.
It was at the league meetings in late March. Harbaugh was asked about the long list of free agents he had brought to the Giants from Baltimore: Isaiah Likely, Patrick Ricard, Jordan Stout et al.
“It’s really a valuable thing to know players,” Harbaugh said of already having coached those acquisitions. “That’s one of the things about your own players and why it’s so important to try to keep the players that you have on your roster if you can.”
Then he paused for a beat.
“We’ll try to do that with the Giants going forward.”
What a novel idea.
The Giants in recent years haven’t had a problem assessing talent or drafting difference-makers or even developing skills in players that allow them to blossom. Their biggest issue has been keeping them around.
Now that Lawrence has gotten his wish — he was traded to the Bengals on Saturday night — the Giants will go into the 2026 season with only one of their own first-round picks locked in on a long-term second contract: Andrew Thomas, who is signed through 2029.
And it may be a while before they get their next one, too. If they wind up trading or not re-signing Kayvon Thibodeaux between now and next offseason and then giving up on Deonte Banks when his rookie contract expires without the Giants exercising the fifth-year option on it, the next in line would be Malik Nabers. The wide receiver has played only 19 games for them in two years.
This is nothing new. The last first-round pick of the Giants to sign and then play through the majority of a true long-term extension with the team was Mathias Kiwanuka . . . who was selected 20 years ago!
Think of it this way: As a Giants fan for the past decade, there probably were many jerseys you bought thinking they were solid investments that would last a long time. All you are left with is a closet filled with throwbacks: 13, 26, 8, 29 . . . and now 97.
Don’t feel too bad about it, though. All you did was spend money on clothing. Lawrence had a Giants logo tattooed on his arm!
There’s no denying the high value the Giants are getting back in the deal — assuming they use it properly. The 10th overall pick in this draft is one of the best hauls in a straight-up swap by any team in recent memory.
Once the wheels were in motion toward an inevitable divorce with Lawrence, this became one of the best outcomes for which the Giants could have hoped. But it never would have happened had Lawrence not expressed his discontent and desire to leave.
This Lawrence situation felt a lot less like a one-off contract dispute than a symptom of something that has hurt the Giants for a while.
So why can’t they keep their own good players?
It’s a strange dynamic because for years, the curse of this organization wasn’t letting go of their stars too soon, it was keeping them around too long.
The mom-and-pop Giants had soft spots for their heroes and (inadvisably at times) did whatever they could to reward them. Super Bowl champions such as David Diehl and Justin Tuck and many from that generation wound up staying one or two years beyond their usefulness rather than being shown the door one or two years earlier. There is a case to be made that the greatest Giant of this century, Eli Manning, he of the two Super Bowl MVPs and “only a Giant” retirement speech, overstayed his tenure to the detriment of the franchise.
At some point, that thinking started to change, though. It started to really swing when general manager Joe Schoen arrived. Now the Giants are more bottom line than mom-and-pop. That’s good for business but not so good for winning.
Sometimes a front office needs to make concessions and splurge a bit not just for the sake of retaining talent but for improving overall morale.
The Giants who remain in the locker room saw the way the franchise treated Saquon Barkley and Xavier McKinney, the way it dealt with Daniel Jones and Evan Engram, and even the way it responded to the recent free agencies of Cor’Dale Flott and Wan’Dale Robinson. Now they have seen what has happened to Lawrence, the popular captain and cornerstone of the defense.
And they will start to wonder if they are next.
Perhaps Harbaugh will start to swing those philosophies back. Maybe he can remind the front office that they are not just dealing with Employee No. 97 and the data that accompanies him but a person — a personality — that despite coming in the shape of a 370-pound mauler requires a delicate touch.
It’s obviously too late to keep Lawrence. The psychological damage from years of not just losing but observing the organization’s approach to his friends who went elsewhere to find success were too much for even money to overcome.
At some point, though, the Giants are going to have to figure out a way to keep their top players in town . . . and keep them happy. Nabers, Jaxson Dart, whomever they pick with those two prized prime selections in this week’s draft — they’ll all be in line for extensions and new contracts before we know it.
Remember:
“We’ll try to do that with the Giants going forward,” Harbaugh said of keeping players . . . even though hardly anyone noticed it at the time.
They haven’t done that yet. If they can, it may be the best new idea that Harbaugh brings with him.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
